Norfolk notes - Very Mary Poppins
Before packing up his car with children, nappies, clothes, potties and the paraphernalia of getting a family from A to B, he rummages and pulls out a kite to lend us. Actuaally, not a kite but a 'stunt wing'. So what's the difference?
The difference, we find out on the beach, is that a kite can be successfully flown by a toddler. The sky is dotted with colourful diamonds of nylon, attached by a thin line to a gleeful child. A stunt wing is an invention of the devil designed to drive you to the point of insanity with its incessant nose-dives, before teasing you with a few seconds of successful, exhilarating flight.
Number of times wing crashed headlong into sand after describing a 180 degree arc at about mach 8 - 1,874.
Number of seconds kite spent in air - 12.
Feeling that successfully getting the thing flying gives you - imagine riding a roller-coaster naked, on crack, drinking beer. It's that good.
Eventually work out secret of wing. It's not supposed to hang in sky, it's supposed to move at blistering pace from left to right about 6 feet off the ground, the wind whistling through the nylon cord which is thrumming under the tension. The whistling is a good thing as it alerts anyone that there is a stretch of razor-thin nylon coming at neck-height in their direction at about 9,000 mph.
You pull right, it goes right, you pull left, it moves left, you whoop, holler and shout, it soars, arcs, swoops and dives...straight into the beach. Normally this would make me swear like a sailor with Turrets but, to be hones, it's just too much fun.
Kite flying is often used in romcoms as a metaphor for a successful couple in love and I now realise why. You need somebody to launch and somebody to pull on the string and if your kite lifts and crashes in the space of .04 of a second and you don't end up bellowing abuse at your partner - it's love.
The wing is about two foot across but still produces enough drag to make moving it quite an act of brute muscular strength. God knows what the arm of the guys who kite-surf at Brancaster must be like - Popeye on steroids!
The difference, we find out on the beach, is that a kite can be successfully flown by a toddler. The sky is dotted with colourful diamonds of nylon, attached by a thin line to a gleeful child. A stunt wing is an invention of the devil designed to drive you to the point of insanity with its incessant nose-dives, before teasing you with a few seconds of successful, exhilarating flight.
Number of times wing crashed headlong into sand after describing a 180 degree arc at about mach 8 - 1,874.
Number of seconds kite spent in air - 12.
Feeling that successfully getting the thing flying gives you - imagine riding a roller-coaster naked, on crack, drinking beer. It's that good.
Eventually work out secret of wing. It's not supposed to hang in sky, it's supposed to move at blistering pace from left to right about 6 feet off the ground, the wind whistling through the nylon cord which is thrumming under the tension. The whistling is a good thing as it alerts anyone that there is a stretch of razor-thin nylon coming at neck-height in their direction at about 9,000 mph.
You pull right, it goes right, you pull left, it moves left, you whoop, holler and shout, it soars, arcs, swoops and dives...straight into the beach. Normally this would make me swear like a sailor with Turrets but, to be hones, it's just too much fun.
Kite flying is often used in romcoms as a metaphor for a successful couple in love and I now realise why. You need somebody to launch and somebody to pull on the string and if your kite lifts and crashes in the space of .04 of a second and you don't end up bellowing abuse at your partner - it's love.
The wing is about two foot across but still produces enough drag to make moving it quite an act of brute muscular strength. God knows what the arm of the guys who kite-surf at Brancaster must be like - Popeye on steroids!
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